As Zornitsa replied, Heloise let out a slow breath in relief, and she carefully closed the curtains, pulling down the blind as well. She darted to the laundry, and found some clothes pegs, returning as Zornitsa did. As she spoke, Heloise used the pegs to close any caps between the curtains, attaching curtain to curtain and curtain to blind, so that any light they might use would not escape easily through the window. As Zornitsa asked, once more, about what had been happening the last few months, Heloise looked to her, a saddened expression showing, as sat down as well. "I don't even know where to begin" She said, looking at the coffee table. "don't drink that water unless it's been unopened. I suppose I'll start with...the carnivorous deer" She pulled her feet up, so she was sitting with them curled under her, her gun within easy reach, her sword, sheathed for now, laying nearby.
"You see, it first started with these weird reports. I was at college, and of course, it was gossip for us, something to distract us from our classes, our upcoming assignments and exams, something that just wasn't college. So we all tried to find out as much as we could about it. I'm not sure which came first, the military involvement when Lenox burned over night, the man attacking people with hands and teeth, or the deer in Montana, eating livestock. That last one was when...I guess we figured things were going strange. Deer, eating other livestock? It just seemed preposterous" Heloise shuddered, still not quite able to believe that. Still not quite able to get the image of a deer tearing into a sheep. "They found mutated genes in the deer, and that's probably what caused them to go rabid" Heloise didn't claim to be any sort of bio-scientist, but that seemed to be a cause for craziness, gene mutation. "There was a lot of speculation, that maybe the government has been experimenting on animals, to create super animals or something. Mostly that, I think, is paranoid mumbo jumbo, but...things kept on happening"
Heloise paused for a moment, closing her eyes, once more succumbing herself to complete darkness. "The military started burning down parts of Lenox, and all can agree they were trying to contain something there, something that had already spread. The riots, the arguements, the stupidness just seemed to come on. A man cannibalised his wife, his chld. The child didn't live. I don't know what happened to the man. But the mother, she attacked a urse, just like the man did her son. And then people went missing from the same hospital, and I don't think they were ever found. I guess thats standard now too. More fights began, more riots, more attacks. The military executed a man, no one knows why and that's when the riots began to occur more frequently, ass the military began to use force, to destroy people, places, things, and it just got worse and worse. There were more and more murders, more and more events I guess you could call them." Heloise stopped here, and swallowed, remembering the reports, the images, the things. "One things clear though. You get infected, infected with what they are calling blackwater...you become a monster. Just like that man, or any number of people. You don't care about killing anymore, you don't care about being a cannibal. You don't care about being alive or dead. You just are. The simplest form, survival really. All you care about is your next meal, even if you just ate two minutes ago. You don't love. You don't hate. You just are a walking shell. And then there are the mutated..." Heloise trailed off, and fell silent for a long time.
When she next spoke, she said "There's no electricity, no fuel, no distribution of supplies. There's no plumpling, no authroity, no cellphones, vehicles are functioning, but without fuel not for long. Most food is okay, but fauna could be contaminated. Tinned food is generally good. Flora is okay. All water, lakes and such, are contaiminated. I think the bottled water here would be fine, as long as it was bottled long before it started. Rinwater is okay, so learn to collect as much as you can. So far, Air seems to be good. I think as long as the animal isn't acting crazy, it should be okay to eat, but if you suspect it isn't, then don't eat it. it isn't worth your life" again, Heloise fell silent, and she wrapped her arms around herself. It didn't seem possible that all this could have happened, and yet it had. This was the world now, and they had no idea when they would become infected. That was the worst part, the not knowing.
You just had to keep on surviving, if you could. Maybe, one day, they'd figure out how to bring the world back into some semblance of normal. That day wasn't today. Oddly enough, talking about it, made Heloise feel better, just slightly so, as if sharing it all meant she was't carrying it all alone anymore. That had to mean something, didn't it? "I don't know what's been going on, since I made my way home, to find my mother. I've just been...traveling. Trying to survive. Trying not to run into too many people. I don't know if there's any sort of help on the way, or if all that's out there is just a handful of survivors and then the dead and the creepy. I don't know if we're the only country affected, or if the whole world is. I just know that I've been surviving, eating tinned food, catching whatever water I can, rummaging houses for toilet paper, of all things!" At this she gave a small laugh, finding once more that it lightening her somewhat. You couldn't forget to laugh. She sobered quickly though, "I've been following riots, or fights, hoping to find my mother. There was no cell service when I got home, so I just left the phone behind when the power was cut off. No point carrying it around, just useless weight now. There's no radio signal either, just that static. Just think of all those teenagers, glued to their phones, tablets and whatnot, coming out of it when they know longer worked, blinking bleary at the sun!" Again, a small laugh, this one almost truly genuine, "But this is not what you want to here"
Heloise reached for one of the water bottles, checking the date of packaging, roughly a year ago and decided it was okay to drink. she cracked open the seal, and took a small sip, "Basically, we're on our own. We can't just sit around waiting for help. We are the Calvary. There is no other help out there. If someone stumbles along, and decides they can help, fantastic! We'll be in a better position then we were, but right now, we're it." She looked about the house, uneasy. "I think we should be okay in this place for the rest of the day. I assume you know how to use that gun, but we'll find a butcher knife or something as well. Sometimes silence is best. You'll learn to run again pretty quickly. You have to, or you'll die" Heloise was blunt there, and she winced as she realised it, giving a sigh, "And I'd rather not be alone again." She set the water aside, deciding if it was contaminated, she'd blow her own head off. She didn't think it was, but at least she knew what to do. She looked to Zornitsa, perhaps for te first time since she started talking.
"We can survive. We just have to want to" She said, very softly, rising to move back the blind slightly, and look out, satisfied for now, she looked back to Zornitsa. "It's not going to be fun, or pretty. But we can do it" Heloise was sure of that, was sure it was possible. They wouldn't die now. "Where did you wake up? How did you wake up? What was around you? Any signs of trouble?" The more knowledge Heloise had, the better prepared she could be. "What happened to you?"
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